New Zealand Men's U-20s

imanixsupporter

Let's be real, while this team was an improvement on Baze's lot of 2 years ago, they were nowhere near Des' side's level and were not going to be doing anything special in the knockouts anyway. Glad the Nix boys can head home early and get back into preseason.

Some truth in that. Hard to see this team doing much in a R16 game against a pool winner.

All the Nix youngsters will now get back to NZ in time for a few days rest, then travel with the squad to play CCM in the final warmup Oct 12th.

Noting looks like Mileusnic, Retre, Piper and maybe even Payne (long haul back from Oslo) will miss the first ALM game in Perth. Nice to see Walker play all 3 games at this tourney and look fit.

HattyCW

imanixsupporter

Let's be real, while this team was an improvement on Baze's lot of 2 years ago, they were nowhere near Des' side's level and were not going to be doing anything special in the knockouts anyway. Glad the Nix boys can head home early and get back into preseason.

Going to be pretty damn tough to top or reach levels similar to Des’s side in the U20WCs to come, that squad was exceptional.

Auckland FC fine tuning their Academy and Reserves team should hopefully speed up the development of promising players in the upper North Island. As will them having their Ressies in the new OFC Pro League.

Hopefully Christchurch United also promote youth in their new OFC pro squad.

As always the more young players in pro environments the deeper the talent pool to select from. 

Declan's Wests/Eastern Suburbs squad in 2018/19 were basically in a semi pro football environment (the team relocated from Ole to Auckland for the Handy Prem summer). Training daily over the summer?? And a big chunk of that squad were in Des's U20 WC group.

I think this is a pretty decent u20 side compared to Des, who often gets rose tinted glasses.

In goal, Grey = to Woud at the same time. LKH more first team pro minutes. Loke comparatively as good as Wilkinson etc in the back. In the midfield, Stipe looks decent. Kelly looks as good up top off limited chances. 

McKinley more pro minutes than Bell at the same age. LBS and GSR more pro minutes than Just or McCowatt at same age etc.

Did the u20 under Des have an easier draw??

MetalLegNZ

I think this is a pretty decent u20 side compared to Des, who often gets rose tinted glasses.

In goal, Grey = to Woud at the same time. LKH more first team pro minutes. Loke comparatively as good as Wilkinson etc in the back. In the midfield, Stipe looks decent. Kelly looks as good up top off limited chances. 

McKinley more pro minutes than Bell at the same age. LBS and GSR more pro minutes than Just or McCowatt at same age etc.

Did the u20 under Des have an easier draw??

The pro minutes coming in one of the worst Nix teams of the past two decades, because of an injury crisis doesn’t indicate a high quality player necessarily. 

Damn, just saw the result and news.

Pretty proud of the group of players in general though. We were the equal of Chile but came away with nothing, got a result against a pretty solid Egyptian side, and came up against a classy Japanese outfit and copped it. Some silly mistakes cost us, but all we can hope is that the players grow from this. We did play far better than our position in the group suggests anyway...

Looks like we were living in the group of death after all.

Just looked at the tiebreaker again, and had we not conceded the third goal, we would have ultimately been eliminated on the fair play tiebreaker. 🫠

So dissapointed for the boys and management. I really enjoyed the football they played and the bravery they showed. I don't see any merit in comparing this team to others. Today they played an excellent Japanese side but competed in ever facet of the game in particular possession and passes completed, except obviously on the scoreboard. As others have said they were good enough to beat Egypt and very unlucky to lose to Chile so would be gutted to have missed out on finals football. Well done boys. I look forward to seeing you progress in you pro career.

They brought out the NZ flag for Australia today HAHAHA

Australia beat Cuba 3-1. 

That win takes them to 3 points. I'm guessing they will still need other results to go their way to make the R16.

Australia almost certainly need Nigeria to lose 2-0 or by any 3 goal margin to make the 16 (a 3-1 loss might send it to fair play or a coin toss or something).

Alternatively, a New Caledonia win vs France would see them through, or South Africa losing by a 7 goal margin to the USA would also do the trick, but these seem rather less likely.

coochiee

Australia beat Cuba 3-1. 

That win takes them to 3 points. I'm guessing they will still need other results to go their way to make the R16.

Edit: even if Egypt hadn't got that last minute winner, the Spain and Australia wins today would have effectively knocked us out. We would still technically be alive but we would have needed at least a 3-0 Nigeria loss AND either a France loss to New Caledonia OR South Africa to lose by 8 against the USA. Was a mercy for Egypt to knock us out the way they did really. 

New Caledonia finish their tourney with a 6-0 loss to the French.

The Australians will be watching the Nigeria verus Colombia match just about to kick off.

87 mins and Nigeria have equalised against Colombia.  1-1.

That basically means like us, Australia will be going home. Unless the Colombians can find 2 goals before the match finishes. Egypt will miss out as well.

Edit - finishes 1-1. WC is over for the Young Socceroos.

USA 1 - South Africa 2

I'll be supporting Ukraine

We finished ahead of Brazil in the 17-24th placed teams - Or as they are affectionately referred to as the team's that are already on the plane back home. 

Australia 17, Egypt 18th, New Zealand 19th, Panama 20th, Brazil 21st, Saudi Arabia, 22nd, Cuba 23rd, New Caledonia 24th.

Round of 16

Colombia beat South Africa 3-1
Argentina thumped Nigeria 4-0
Chile downed by Mexico 1-4. So logic is we would have been similarily easily beaten
Spain 1-0 winners over Ukraine  

Japan currently playing France
Norway verus Paraguay

Looks like Japan v France and Norway v Paraguay will go to extra time.  I really wish these games weren't at the exact same time.

Norway are through with a goal at 116mins and France won via a penalty at 120 + 3.  

Was hoping Japan would go through since they beat us so well but alas there are no survivors from Group A.

Quarter finals
France 2 Norway 1
Morocco 3 USA 1
Argentina 2 Mexico (player sent off) 0
Colombia 3 Spain 2

Semis
Morocco verus France
Argentina verus Colombia - the Chilean locals will be getting behind the Colombians

coochiee

Quarter finals
France 2 Norway 1
Morocco 3 USA 1
Argentina 2 Mexico (player sent off) 0
Colombia 3 Spain 2

Semis
Morocco verus France
Argentina verus Colombia - the Chilean locals will be getting behind the Colombians

“The enemy of my enemy”?

Morocco have just beaten Argentina 2 nil.  Columbia won the 3rd place play off 1 nil. 

I must say, Colombia played some great football. 

I hope these National Team coaches are being held accountable. U20 men (average), U17 women (extremely poor) U17s men ( 3 nil vs Mali)!

It's really tough to be a junior coach. How often are they meeting up to play friendlies, are the players affiliated to a pro organisation and getting proper coaching, are coaches given a budget to monitor, visit and assess prospects year round. 

Most football associations just don't have the necessary funds for a full time Junior coach. Coaches focus at this age is to identify a pipeline, use the tournament to give those players experiences and hope that it propels them to great things. 

Nobody gives the coaches/association credit when a player goes from the U17, to U20, Olympic U23 and then the All Whites. So few players do it (get your flowers) but what about the coaches who identified this player?